mentors as a lawyer was a lawyer who argued pivotal voting right cases for department.justice in 1963 in mississippi, john stepped between angry protesters and armed police to prevent a potential massacre after the murder of medgar evers. that was the kind of lawyer and later he was. years later, he gave me a photo with an inscription from tennyson's ulysses. to strive, to seek to a find, and not to yield. our nation's greatness is not a birthright. it must be earned by every generation. i am confident that we can earn it for this time. we are at our best one we live our values, including our devotion to democracy and protection under the rule of law when we widen that circle of opportunity and extend dignity to all of our citizens. i believe strongly that that is what is called for today. there is no group that i have more confidence in being able to rise and meet that challenge than the lawyers of america and particularly, the american bar association. thank you all very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013